ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Instead, it creates a profit-driven industry that will aggressively market product, increase consumers and continuously push more potent (and, therefore, more addictive) products, while insisting they are not harmful. Think Big Tobacco 2.0. On steroids. And it will obliterate medical marijuana in Maine, as it has in Washington state and Colorado.

Let’s take a look at what Question 1 will actually do instead of what the proponents want you to believe it will do.

• The legislation completely legalizes pot use for kids by repealing the section of the law that prohibits it. Right now, adults 21 and over may possess up to 2½ ounces (that’s 150 joints) of pot and face a civil penalty only (i.e. fines).

Question 1 will make it legal for people over 21 and under 21 to possess and use up to 150 joints of pot. This law does not protect kids – it set them up as a huge new market for commerce.

The legislation establishes pot shops. Colorado now has more pot shops than Starbucks, McDonald’s or even pharmacies. Under the would-be law, pot shops are supposed to sell only to persons over 21, but there is no penalty for selling marijuana and marijuana products to youths. This law treats the marijuana retailer differently from an alcohol or tobacco retailer, who could lose their license for allowing sales to children.

•The legislation does nothing to protect the public from impaired drivers. Unlike with alcohol, there is no prohibition against driving while smoking or consuming marijuana. And although operating while impaired by marijuana would be a crime, it’s not enforceable because there is no marijuana corollary to the blood alcohol test threshold of .08.

Marijuana hits all three parts of the brain (as opposed to alcohol’s one), and there is no standard metabolism rate. There is no known number of nanograms of tetrahydrocannabinol in the blood that proves impairment. So if somebody tests at 5 nanograms or 8 nanograms of THC, that means, well, nothing.

•The legislation wreaks havoc on employers. It specifically prohibits an employer from penalizing an employee for using marijuana in a location other than the employer’s property.

This is in contrast to the medical marijuana law, which provides limits on the use of marijuana by employees. Because of the conflicts with the medical marijuana law and federal law, it will be impossible for employers to know how to respond to a stoned employee or a problem employee who happens to use marijuana.

•This bill gives landlords no rights to impose (and tenants no rights to enjoy) smoke-free policies. The medical marijuana law allows a landlord to restrict smoking on their property if they adopt a 100 percent smoke-free policy. This bill specifically allows the smoking of marijuana in any “nonpublic” place.

• This bill gives the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry a mere nine months to set up a huge regulatory bureaucracy; develop rules, policies and protocols, and train law enforcement in the investigations, searches, etc., necessary to enforce the new laws.

The Department of Agriculture, of course, has no experience, let alone expertise, in substance abuse, the law of search and seizure, commercialization of drugs or training law enforcement. It’s like asking the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to develop rules and enforce a whole new tax code.

This new regulatory and licensing structure will divert scarce police resources from crime to regulatory enforcement. It will also divert scarce court resources with endless licensing appeals.

Now for the cost: This bill will not save money or resources. The tax revenue imagined by the proponents will be outstripped, by a factor of at least 10 to 1, by the costs generated by the law. That’s the way it is with cigarettes and alcohol, and will be with marijuana.

The “yes on 1” campaign rhetoric is characterized by smoke and mirrors and downright dishonesty. That’s because the motive behind this effort is Big Marijuana commercialization at a time when we are already in the center of a gargantuan, devastating and overwhelming substance abuse public health crisis in our state.

Let’s take the time to develop a smart and sensible approach to marijuana based on public health and not on what’s best for Big Marijuana. Vote “no” on 1.

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morn’joe

“It creates a profit- driven industry to market pot at a time when substance abuse runs rampant.”

Let’s see here which profit driven company is currently deriving profit from prescription medications, alcohol,tobacco…
continue now with profiting businesses that get monies from people abusing these items: Doctors,medical establishments,pharmaceuticals,scientists,engineers,lawyers,insurance companies,police forces and yes DA’s and a whole host of others profit from abusing just these 3 products.
Yet the illegal use of marijuana, currently is profiting whom?

chris1465

“The legislation completely legalizes pot use for kids”

If the best argument you’ve got is obviously false, I don’t see much reason to take this letter seriously.

gadfly371

You wouldn’t!

Jordan Kratz

You have lost and we have won already.
Polls say 63% want legal weed.

Adam_Romero

Take polls with a grain of salt and don’t be so sure before you celebrate. Legal weed was voted down in liberal hotbed California a few years ago. I’d like to think it will pass here, but there’s a chance it won’t.

Maine has the oldest population in the country. Old people see weed as the same thing as Cocaine or Heroin. Drugs.

gadfly371

A good chance it won’t

PhilDeBowl

Careful with that stereotyping, I’m almost 72 and me and most of my friends who enjoy the herb know the difference between Cannabis and Hard drugs.

chris1465

Wouldn’t accept false arguments? You’re right I wouldn’t. You say that like it’s a bad thing.

PhilDeBowl

You shouldn’t.

Perry Platt

Another hack job full of deliberate misinterpretations, misrepresentations and a couple outright falsifications. How typical. According to recent polls, Maine voters are not fooled by this kind of blather.

gadfly371

No they’re not. They will reject dope!

Jordan Kratz

Lying right winger !!!
We already have seen polls and all of them state 60% and over in favor of legal weed.

Now, go grab your beer and cry in it !!!

PhilDeBowl

Perry’s comment has 9 people who bothered to upvote, you got zip, that should tell you something.

gadfly371

Don’t want druggie upvotes, thanx!

Birchwind

She went to at least 7 years of post high school graduate study on how to interpret words. What about you? Mainers are being fooled by the Pro 1 crowd. This will end up cost Mainers big.

FradyCat5

Where did she learn anything about cannabis? Certainly not the sources you mentioned. “being fooled” Our Govt has been fooling (lying to) us since day one about cannabis.

Birchwind

It is not the weed, that she claims knowledge, it is the way the proposed law is written.

FradyCat5

That’s what they always say.

JohnB

Well, Birchwind, I and lots of other cannabis reform advocates have more than a dozen years of post-graduate education, and I’m here to tell you Perry is correct; this opinion piece IS “full of deliberate misinterpretations, misrepresentations and a couple outright falsifications.”

Birchwind

Okay, which one’s and why?

JohnB

I gave a complete point-by-point refutation above.

Perry Platt

I agree with you, Birch, in that the writer has learned well. And has taken that training to deliberately create a piece full of misinformation, cherry-picked data and a couple outright falsehoods.

However, one does not need an advanced education to see through this smoke screen, so I and many others are not the target audience. Rather, this opinion piece is aimed at those who aren’t so good at critical thinking

Birchwind

It is not the concept she disagree’s with, it is the wording of the law.

PhilDeBowl

One has to wonder what a Legalization law that she agrees with would look like.LOL

PhilDeBowl

” how to interpret words”,,,,,Lawyers Manipulate words,not interpret.
As our famous X pervert in the Oval office Bill Clinton said “it depends on what the meaning of is is”.

Jordan Kratz

“Maine Voices: Effort to legalize marijuana is full of smoke and mirrors by people who are using fearmongering to scare you into Voting NO.”

Another fearmonger trying to screw us of Legal Weed.
VOTE YES EVERYONE.We do have a majority of support.End the War on a Plant.

Not Bob Moses

I was so disappointed that Anderson was able to run unopposed for DA back in 2014. Let us not make this mistake again – 2018 will see Cumberland County elect a new DA that reflects our values and doesn’t buy into the drug-war propaganda.

Lets see what percentage of Cumberland County voters approves Question 1. Then we’ll talk. Come 2018, Anderson ought to receive that many votes against her.

saucywitch

Gee, how many overdoses, fatal car accidents, family violence, attributed to pot smokers? None! The author clearly has no clue or understanding, and if so then is a liar!

Adam_Romero

The D.A. Is suppose to prosecute the law, not lobby against what the voters might approve. If a majority approves, I couldn’t really give a care what the DA or the police say. They don’t make the law. The people do.

Mary is abundant in Maine. Anybody who’s going to smoke and drive is already doing it. Teenagers who are going to toke, are already doing so. Legal herb isn’t going to make it any more obtainable to people who are going to use it.

yellowkid49

If you wait for Anderson’s perfect bill, you’ll never see it. Vote “yes” and work the kinks out later.

gadfly371

Ok Nancy Pelosi. We saw the consequences of that thinking with the Affordable Care Act, yes?

Man 4 Freedom

Just more stupid reefer madness nonsense.

FradyCat5

Pelosi said something like pass the aca then read it, right? The marijuana laws aren’t as long and not that hard to read.

PhilDeBowl

In the states that have Re-Legalized Cannabis there is a constant fight against the dark forces of prohibition. The Prohibes in our state legislatures are doing everything they can to undermine the program that they never wanted in the first place, and you’ll have your hands full just keeping the Prohibes from eviscerating the law or making it complicated beyond reason. Good Luck.

Pozessed

Don’t legalize it. Let all the illegal cartels profit from marijuana users. Let the people who would benefit from marijuana continue to rely on the pharmaceutical industry. It’s not your life being ruined by keeping it illegal after all. Who cares if a minor gets tangled in the judicial system for the rest of their life because they possessed marijuana, that’s not your problem.

Some people are stupid, some are not. Has nothing to do with “pot”. I find ignorance makes a person stupid, seeing as the info is out there and the ignorant don’t bother to find it.

gadfly371

Exactly. Stoners are ignorant!

FradyCat5

You seem rather blissful to me.

PhilDeBowl

Upvoting your own comment is kind of stupid.

gadfly371

No. First you’re stupid, then you start using dope.

JohnB

It is disheartening that this screed is not clearly labeled as opinion rather than news.

Clearly many, especially older, voters will take these points as fact rather than as easily dismissed opinion because it is being presented in a way easily confused with actual news reporting.

So, let’s set the record straight, point-by-point:

• The legislation completely legalizes pot use for kids

While some mental gymnastics by the AG can wind a twisted path to such a conclusion, any lack of clarity in the actual laws is easily remedied by an afternoon session of the legislature to clarify things.

Such action will inevitably occur LONG before any cannabis stores actually open to sell fully legal cannabis.

The whole thing is just a scare tactic, and it fits perfectly with the entire history of cannabis laws, which have been driven by fear-mongering and outright lies since their inception.

I wonder if the AG knows why cannabis was made illegal in the first place?

• The legislation does nothing to protect the public from impaired drivers.

No legislation anywhere has the ability to do this, for precisely the reasons that the author goes on to acknowledge; there is no established correlation between a given amount of THC in the bloodstream (nor indeed even an accurate test) and ACTUAL impairment.

Requiring such is precisely the same kind of catch-22 that currently keeps cannabis a schedule 1 substance in the CSA.

There’s no proof that impairment actually occurs, and there’s no test to try to give that proof in any case.

We may some day have both a test and correlation to some level and actual impairment, but here’s the more important thing to consider; we have spent millions training officers to detect impairment, and have given them wide power to take a driver off the road is they suspect impairment.

The source of that impairment is irrelevant. So the tools to fight impaired driving already exist, even if we don’t have empirical science to quantify it.

Beyond all of that, we have several important points to consider when it comes to cannabis and traffic safety: First, despite cooked-up data by the RMHIDTA, there is zero evidence that legalization leads to a rash of cannabis-impaired drivers on the road.
Second, anyone who is careless enough to consume cannabis and then get right behind the wheel is ALREADY doing so. The laws against cannabis possession can do and have done NOTHING to stop this, so it is ridiculous to forestall cannabis law reform on the canard that somehow doing so will keep cannabis impaired drivers off the road.

• The legislation wreaks havoc on employers. It specifically prohibits an employer from penalizing an employee for using marijuana in a location other than the employer’s property.

I’m perplexed at why this author decided to included the best counter-argument ever against her own argument right in the bullet point, but there it is: “a location other than the employer’s property.”

Employers are just that, employers, not parents, not moral authorities.

We all sell them a certain amount of our time and talents in exchanges for money.

That is the sum total of that relationship, period.

An employer has every right to expect you to show up to work fully capable of providing your end of the bargain.

They have no right, however, to your bodily fluids, nor to any say about what you do on your own time or in your own place.

• This bill gives landlords no rights to impose (and tenants no rights to enjoy) smoke-free policies. The medical marijuana law allows a landlord to restrict smoking on their property if they adopt a 100 percent smoke-free policy.

Do I understand correctly that this author is advocating landlords having the right to allow highly toxic cigarette smoke but prohibit non-toxic cannabis smoke?

That argument has no legitimacy whatsoever; allow poison, but prohibit non-poison?

The bottom line is that landlords have every right – and even a responsibility – to provide entirely smoke-free living spaces.

Asking them to differentiate between one kind of smoke and another is ludicrous and gives them moral authority over what is actually a public health and safety issue, not a moral one.

• This bill gives the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry a mere nine months to set up a huge regulatory bureaucracy…

It is not surprising that this very weak argument is saved for last, since it is so easily dismissed.

Maine has not only five other highly successful examples from which to draw when drafting the particulars, there is also the entire medical cannabis experience as a foundation.

It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to adapt regulations from another state, let alone nine months.

This author really needs to step up her rhetorical skills if she hopes to actually convince any thinking people to vote against issue 1.

FradyCat5

“older, voters will take these points as fact” because they already think that way. BS like this just confirms their thinking.

PhilDeBowl

Well stated.

Man 4 Freedom

Some of our lawmakers and politicians are corrupt and answer to the will of big corporations rather than the people they’re elected to serve. If they’re properly informed they know cannabis is safer than booze, pills and tobacco. What scares them is losing the money from big corporations for alcoholic beverages and pharmaceutical drugs currently lining their pockets and keeping them in office.

Figures from the Center for Disease Control on numbers of deaths per year in the USA:

You forgot to mention all the judges, lawyers, police, and prisons that would lose out on easy money if pot were legal. I honestly believe the judges and lawyers whose livelihoods depend on marijuana prohibition have more to lose than corporations. Which is a sure sign of legislative corruption in my opinion.

gadfly371

Stoner logic is as twisted as their mind when wasted!

Youssef Ismail

Ah, the “big marijuana” boogieman. I’m sorry, but that mythical beast is every bit as real as unicorns. Take a look at the fortune 500, not a single marijuana company listed. Furthermore we already have field sobriety tests, and it is already illegal to drive while intoxicated. We arrest and charge people everyday for driving while stoned on marijuana, prescription pills, and booze. We don’t need a breathalyzer for marijuana anymore than we need one for vicodin. The rest of the “article” is simply too absurd to correct. Legalize it.

Delia Ganon

This is completely false.Cannabis is the real thing. It really
helps people in so many different ways, and as the national outlook on cannabis
changes, I can only hope that more people will have access to good quality,
affordable CBD. As it is right now, many companies source the hemp to extract
CBD from abroad, and that cost is passed on to the consumer. If the US were to
change its restrictions regarding hemp and marijuana agriculture, companies
like http://www.deltacbd.com/shop/shop-CBD-E-Liquid-Concentrate would be able
to pass those savings on to consumers while still providing a high quality,
effective product.

Neddman

A lot of the legal marijuana sold in Colorado contains 30-40% THC. This is neither natural nor healthy. This will put us on a very slippery and scary slope.

JohnB

Slippery slope arguments are, by nature, rhetorical failures.

They are a specific type (category) of logical fallacy.

Beyond that, your slippery slope argument is factually incorrect; the highest percentage of THC in cannabis is found in the cannabis cup contestants, and in the most recent case, the winner clocked in at 31%, WELL above what is typically sold in Colorado.

The previous winners all came in under 28%, and most are in the 20-23% range.

There is no evidence of a 40% strain ever, period.

More to the point is the fact that most cannabis sold in Colorado is much less than 25%, and usually much less than 20%.

Even MORE to the point is that the increase in potency is so often used as a canard in anti-cannabis talking points; the percentage is trotted out as though the mere number in some way makes the product dangerous.

It doesn’t.

I love Woodford Reserve. I love Budweiser.

I don’t drink my bourbon the same way I drink my beer.

snojam

More THC % means less woody/leafy matter. Higher percentage doesn’t mean “stronger” THC. It rather means less other matters. Less THC % means more leafy matter to inhale in order to reach an average high.

Neddman

Yes, for an efficient high. The problem is that as THC content increases, the body comes to expect the higher levels, thus building a tolerance. This is when the addiction starts to form.

This is not unlike alcoholism. Most alcoholics do not start out drinking hard liquor. Most start in their teens with beer, perhaps wine. Over time they add in the higher alcohol content beverages. Quick and efficient.

JohnB

The phenomenon you are describing is dependent on the actual dopamine receptors being damaged by the stimulant.

Obviously, whether that damage occurs depends on both the individuals’ biology and the substance being considered as well as the frequency of use.

Some people who are prone to addiction are more susceptible to such damage, even from typically benign substances such as cannabis, or rather THC.

Other people can take much more powerful substances for years and have relatively little synaptic damage.

The problem with your analysis is that it lumps together substances such as heroin, which almost always causes receptor damage, with substances such as cannabis, which very rarely do.

Tolerance is a very different mechanism and set of chemistry than craving, which is a result of damaged receptors.

snojam

Higher THC content means less stress for the lungs. Addiction to THC does not exist. (Except in the minds of prohibitionists). Your theory about content increase is false: if you smoke one joint of 20% THC pot, it won’t be worse than smoking two joints of 10%.

gadfly371

“Addiction to TWC does nott exist”. What a lie!

gadfly371

Cannabis put hair on my chest!

Gene Auprey

The only smoke and mirrors into play here are coming from the DA’s office. He knows that this is just a referendum and that the Legislature will have ample opportunity to fine tune any problems with verbiage before it becomes law. They have done a good job handling the legal medical marijuana, to point where other states look at Maine as an example of a well run system. There is no reason to believe they will do any less of a competent job on legalizing recreational marijuana regulations.

PhilDeBowl

This woman is such a F’n liar, she even contradicts her own lies, and SHE is a DA??? WTF.

gadfly371

And you’re a moron!

PhilDeBowl

F’off Troll

DirtyDog

What a joke of an article. The author should be ashamed: either by their lack of integrity to take money to write such obviously false junk, or, their lack of sense to know what they’re writing is wrong.